


After Death: Remus was Ready

by CaptainErica



Series: After Death [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Back again!, Gen, Huh this feels similar to the first one...., I will do Peter next maybe potentially, Most of the Marauders together again, Oops I skipped peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4180902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainErica/pseuds/CaptainErica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn't blocked fast enough, hadn't ducked quick enough. There was nothing for it. For someone so dangerous as he could be at times, it was rather sad that he hadn't lasted longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Death: Remus was Ready

_Not as fast as you once were._ Old, infirm, and dangerous, but not dangerous enough to get the job done in time. _Teddy._ Remus feels like he’s awake and asleep all at the same time. His eyes are closed and it’s as if he’s having a dream; the fitful kind that leaves one exhausted when they awaken. He’s not sleeping though, because the curse had absolutely hit him and he was no “Harry Potter”.

 

The thought causes his lip to twitch up in amusement, before his mind is drawn away from that train of thought. There was something strange about this moment. He had died, of that he was sure, but it didn’t feel like an ending.

_Death is but the next great adventure._ These words float, unbidden, into his mind and a moue of confusion passes over his face. Professor Dumbledore had said that, once. He can’t remember if the old man had said it to him or if Harry had told him, and he finds himself wanting to laugh at how ridiculous it seems that such a young boy could have given him such advice.

 

A tear slips down his face, and he feels it slide over his cheek and curve across his chin. He’s uncertain how this sensation can be happening, and he wonders, briefly, if there was someone he could have talked to about death before it came down to it. There was going to be a lot of death today, and nothing more he could do about it.

_Teddy. Harry._ He’s worried and starting to panic, but a cool calm washes over him. There was still Tonks. There was still Molly and still Arthur… With a gigantic effort, he pulls his eyes open, surprised that he both managed it and thought to do it.

 

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the white room before him, and it’s just as his eyes focus that a door opens at the end. There are two people standing in the doorway, frozen as if shocked.

 

“Moony!” Two voices shout, before they are stumbling into the room and across the floor. Remus’ eyes are open so wide as to be considered comical as his two best friends come barreling toward him.

 

“Sirius….James…” He says, and his mouth feels slow but he manages to get the words out anyway.

 

He stands, awkwardly, but Sirius is there to catch him when his knees buckle, and James is right behind. He doesn’t know what to think, or even if he can. His head feels like it isn’t on straight and there are noises outside the door that the two so carelessly left open.

 

“You’re…here?” He asks, uncertain if he even knows where ‘here’ is.

 

James laughs and ruffles his hair in that _oh so familiar_ way. It was like seeing his memories play out in front of him, and he felt himself crying again. “Of course we’re here, mate. Been waiting for the chance to see you again up close…” It’s kind of left open, as if James isn’t sure he said the right thing even though it’s truly what he was feeling.

 

It was such a _James_ thing to say that Remus’s tears give way to laughter and he reaches forward with uncertain arms to wrap James up in a hug that was 16 years late.

 

“Way to wish Moony dead, Prongs.” Sirius laughs, and Remus turns his eyes on the man who’d been so haunted last he saw him.

 

“Padfoot.” Remus says on an exhale, and untangles a hand from around James to reach up and touch Sirius’s face.

 

“Not as rugged as I was, huh?” He asks, with a smile, and Remus chokes on another laugh.

 

Remus feels James stiffen, but doesn’t see it because he’s entranced by the fact that they’re there. His best friends, closer than family, and right in front of him. They look whole and hale and hearty and he can barely think of anything else. His face scrunches up in confusion as his brain tries to process what is happening.

 

“You’re wearing that ugly sweater.” Sirius says, and Remus blinks and holds his arm out before his eyes.

 

It was the sweater that his grandmother had sent him for Christmas 6th year. It had leather elbow patches that were soft and worn and it was a mixture of atrocious colors that even Lily hadn’t been able to put names too. It was warm and comfortable, he remembers, and just the sight of it brings a smile back to his face.

 

“Remus,” James says, and it’s that tone of voice that always meant that there was something wrong and James didn’t want you to be upset. It was that tone of voice that he had only ever used after 7th year when his parents were gone and the world had turned upside down.

 

It was only now that Remus realizes that James had stopped looking at him and was looking over his shoulder. It was only now that Remus could feel the tense straightness of James' shoulder. “What…?” He begins to ask, and then he suddenly remembers where he had been.

 

He’d been fighting for his life and for Harry’s and for his wee little son’s. He’d been fighting for Nymphadora, who hated her name even though it encapsulated her so perfectly. He’d been fighting the same fight that had lost him all of his friends; and that was why he was in this white room, clinging to Sirius and James.

 

“Dora?” He asks, and James looks down at him with a look that says he understands; he knows this feeling.

 

And somehow that makes it worse.

 

He turns then, to see for himself, because while he’s always trusted James, this is something that he needs to do. Sirius grips his arm and lifts him up into a standing position, and Remus is only peripherally embarrassed that he can’t stand on his own. What he sees, however, makes him glad for the support.

 

Sitting on a chair not ten paces away, is a young girl with her eyes closed and her hair a mess. The color of it changes swiftly as if trying to express her moods, and it breaks Remus’s heart. Nymphadora Tonks was supposed to have lived. This young and vibrant auror and the mother of his child, was not supposed to be sitting on a chair in the white room that so obviously was the afterlife he’d never imagined he’d get to see.

 

His mind wanders for a moment, wondering if Peter was here, and all the others who’d died fighting for the ‘wrong’ side. He’s snapped back to his senses when Dora mutters Teddy’s name. Sirius helps him walk toward her on unstable legs, and Remus throws a silent ‘thank you’ over his shoulder.

 

He’s kneeling in front of her now, and he’s uncertain what to do; what to say…how to be. She’s not supposed to be here. It’s this thought that reminds him of James, and he knows that something like this is how James must have felt when he saw Lily there; broken, confused, and so desperately _wretched_.

 

Her eyelids flutter and Remus takes a deep breath, and then another, and then her eyes open and they’re bigger than he remembers. They’re bluer, too. He wonders briefly if Teddy will be more like her or him, but he doesn’t have time to think. The door is opening again, and Dora has just breathed his name out in confusion.


End file.
